In the manufacture and production of rolled paper towels, such as kitchen towels, a creped base sheet is commonly produced on a tissue machine and wound into a parent roll. Thereafter, in converting operations, the parent roll is unwound and embossed in order to increase the bulk of the towel. The designs of the embossing patterns can vary greatly, but often they are embossing patterns which substantially cover the entire sheet and may be referred to as overall patterns. However, a common problem associated with embossing towel base sheets is that, upon being wound into the final roll form of the product, the sheet embossments cause the roll to be somewhat soft and "mushy". This effect, which can be quantified by measuring the roll firmness, becomes more pronounced as the bulk of the roll is increased by imparting embossments to the base sheet which have greater z-direction dimensions. At the same time, increasing the bulk of the base sheet also typically degrades the strength of the sheet.
Therefore there is a need for a means of producing rolls of embossed, creped paper towels having a high roll bulk and a high degree of roll firmness with adequate strength.